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Fire, Ice, and Trademark Protection

With HBO’s hit adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s A Song
of Fire and Ice drawing to a close, Game of Thrones has
a trademark portfolio and enforcement budget to match its cultural status.

Trademark Portfolio

We’ll just look at HBO’s US portfolio, headed by in-house
counsel Judy McCool.
At the time of writing, HBO has just over four hundred and fifty active
applications and registrations in its entire portfolio, and more than seventy
relate to Game of Thrones – about 15%
of HBO’s entire US portfolio.

The title Game of Thrones
or variations account for just over half of the total filings, and cover
everything from DVDs to spinoff games to slot machines, clothing, action
figures, watches, food and booze, and even swords. The rest of the filings are
scattered between character-specific marks like KHALEESHI for makeup and HODOR
for clothing to plot-driven marks like THE LONG NIGHT and WINTER is coming.
There are also a handful of more random filings like HAND OF THE QUEEN for
alcoholic beverages and clearly the strangest, MILK OF THE POPPY for clothing
and mugs (!).

Enforcement Efforts at the TTAB

HBO’s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board enforcement team, led by Tamara Carmichael
of Olshan, also has its hands
full. It has taken extensions of time to oppose or opposed dozens of
applications by third parties, most related to the Game of Thrones title itself.

Three of HBO’s applications were also opposed or subject to
extensions; filings for GAME OF THRONES went through to registration, while HBO
dropped applications for DROGON and THREE EYED RAVEN for alcoholic beverages.